Warrior May Madness: Like-Dislike on the Women's NCAA Tournament Field

So the 2010 tournament is here after a very competitive regular season, and the debates have begun with teams and the placements.

One of the clear things the committee had to deal with is the geographical locations of the teams. Most of the seeded teams are in the south while most non-seeds are in the north or Midwest, which undoubtedly made the committee’s decisions difficult. Here are my likes and dislikes to our 2010 tournament bracket.

Like: No Snubs

When it comes to selecting the teams for the tournament, the committee has shown once again that the teams that most deserve to get in, do. The last two teams in, Notre Dame and Towson, had a better resume and solid reasons to be in the tournament over Loyola and Dartmouth, with either head-to-head wins or did better through a stronger schedule. The fact is, this year it was an easier field to get into than last year, and many teams had their chance but could not get in.

Dislike: Flight restrictions

This is one of those things where it happens every year and there are economic reasons behind it, but it still makes the first round easy for some and harder for others based on their geographic location. 2-seed Northwestern has to face a top-15 ranked-Notre Dame squad while 8-seed Penn gets unranked Boston University. Same goes for 4-seed Georgetown, who will face Syracuse due to being just under the ground transportation limit, where the next two of the next three seeds get lower ranked teams. I understand it will never change, but it does hurt the fairness of the first round.

Like: Penn as the #8-seed

The committee placed Penn in a solid position, not too high and not unseeded. As it turns out, they have not beaten a team in the tournament, which keeps them low, but they only had, subsequently, three chances with Maryland, Northwestern and North Carolina. It is not their fault that the rest of the Ivy League did not get a bid, and they had wins against bubble squads Dartmouth and Hofstra. Good place to put the Quakers.

Dislike: Georgetown as the #4-seed

I really don’t like Georgetown at the 4-seed. They swept through the Big East, but giving them the possibility of two home games for the tournament is not deserved. Comparing them to 7-seed Duke, which is also 13-5 on the season, the Blue Devils beat them 10-8 head-to-head, Duke’s losses were all to seeded teams, while Georgetown has a loss to Princeton along with its four other losses to seeded teams. The Hoyas got the conference title while Duke did not, but the Big East was not as strong as the ACC. The Hoyas deserved a seed, but not #4.

Not sure about: James Madison as the #5-seed

On the one hand, I think this is a good placement, giving them credit for defeating Virginia and running the table against a strong CAA that included Towson and Hofstra. On the other hand, the overall schedules of Virginia and Duke are much stronger, and I’m not sure the Dukes would have been so efficient with those teams. But in the end, James Madison at least deserved a seed after going 16-2 and winning the CAA title, especially after being expected to be 5th in the conference this season. I’m with Danielle Bernstein on this, a stellar season for the Dukes.

Like: Use of head-to-head matchups for tournament positioning

The committee clearly used matchups between each other to put teams in plus position them in the tournament. James Madison got their 5-seed with help from defeating 6-seed Virginia, and subsequently Virginia got the 6-seed over 7-seed Duke with their head-to-head win. This can apply to the unseeded as well: Towson gets to play 6-seed Virginia by defeating Stanford, who will play 5-seed JMU.

Dislike: Repeating matchups in the first round

The NCAA committee has said before they like to differentiate matchups when possible to make the competition better. They missed a chance to put two new games into the first round and instead came up with one: Stanford and Vanderbilt, both of which have to fly, could have been switched to make Duke vs. Stanford and James Madison vs. Vanderbilt, neither of which has happened. Duke has already played Vanderbilt this season, defeating the Commodores 19-10 in Nashville.

Overall, considering the circumstances, I feel the committee did a good job with the tournament. You could change a few things here or there, but the 16 teams that are in should be there and the placement is good. It should be an exciting tournament this year.